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Mining of sulfur from a deposit at the edge of Ijen's crater lake, Indonesia. Mining is the extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or feasibly created artificially in a laboratory or factory.
The act of mining requires different methods of extraction depending on the mineralogy, geology, and location of the resources. Characteristics such as mineral hardness, the mineral stratification, and access to that mineral will determine the method of extraction. Generally, mining is either done from the surface or underground.
The possibility of using microorganisms in biomining applications was realized after the 1951 paper by Kenneth Temple and Arthur Colmer. [9] In the paper the authors presented evidence that the bacteria Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans (basonym Thiobacillus ferrooxidans) is an iron oxidizer that thrive in iron, copper and magnesium-rich environments. [9]
Brine mining is the extraction of useful materials (chemical elements or compounds) which are naturally dissolved in brine. The brine may be seawater , other surface water , groundwater , or hyper-saline solutions from several industries (e.g., textile industries). [ 1 ]
In-situ leach for uranium has expanded rapidly since the 1990s, and is now the predominant method for mining uranium, accounting for 45 percent of the uranium mined worldwide in 2012. [2] Unlike open-pit and underground mining, in-situ leaching does not rely on burial depth as a criterion but is based on the properties of the uranium deposit.
During the Song dynasty, Chinese copper output from domestic mining was in decline and the resulting shortages caused miners to seek alternative methods for extracting copper. The discovery of a new “wet process” for extracting copper from mine water was introduced between the eleventh and twelfth century, which helped to mitigate their ...
Advancing technology: Increasing technology sophistication enables faster rates of natural resource extraction. For example, in the past, it could take a long time to log a small amount of trees using only saws. Due to better technology, the rates of deforestation have greatly increased. [6]
Solvent extraction and electrowinning (SX/EW) is a two-stage hydrometallurgical process that first extracts and upgrades copper ions from low-grade leach solutions into a solvent containing a chemical that selectively reacts with and binds the copper in the solvent.